Lead-tainted water charges

FLINT: The head of the Michigan health department has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in Flint’s lead-tainted water crisis.

Nick Lyon is accused of failing to alert the public about an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in the Flint area, in the US, which has been linked by some experts to poor water quality in 2014-15.

Charges were read yesterday in court. Lyon is the highest-ranking official to be charged in the state attorney general’s investigation.

Flint began using water from the Flint River in 2014 but didn’t treat it to reduce corrosion. Lead from old plumbing leached into the water system.

Legionnaires’ is a type of pneumonia caused by bacteria that thrive in warm water and infect the lungs. – AP

PICTURE: AP Pope Francis’s mantle gets a lift as he leans to greet someone at his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, in Rome, yesterday.